instructors and employees

Academic profile in Eco-efficient Engineering

The academic profile in Eco-efficient Engineering is concerned with the theory and the methods and tools used to analyse environmental aspects and resource consumption of systems, products and technologies and to create environmentally friendly and resource efficient solutions. In brief, these are the tasks of the environmental engineer in the development of sustainable technology and a sustainable society.

Programme structure

Semester

Modules

7

Planning and Interpreting

Risk Assessment

GIS*

Business and Economic Management

System Analysis

8

Environmental Modelling 1

Environmental Modelling 2 (project)

Waste Management and Resource Recovery

Industrial Water Technology

9

Design for Environment

Ethics and Methods in Science

Elective

Elective

Elective

Elective

10

Master Thesis

*Geographical information systems

Eco-efficient Engineering is about finding solutions that give maximum output with minimal environmental impact. That we consider the environmental impact per output in the system that we study is implicit in the term efficiency, and this approach is crucial if you want to develop sustainable solutions. However, we also consider whether the environmental efficiency is sufficient in the long run to create a truly sustainable development.

With an academic profile in Eco-efficient Engineering you will learn to improve the environment at different levels:
• Emission: environmental emission
• Process: individual unit processes in the company
• Manufacturing: the complete manufacturing system of the company
• Product: the whole supply chain for the product
• Society: across supply chains and sectors

Regardless of level of effort, you will learn to identify all solutions as a system and to analyse it and create solutions from a holistic perspective. Moreover, you become able to keep a broad view of the environmental perspective of various technological platforms such as biotechnology, nanotechnology, sensors, management, IT, or renewable energy technologies such as wind and solar technology and fuel cells.

An environmental engineer’s ability to create sustainable solutions is, among other things, based on an understanding of the environmental dimension of all the classical engineering disciplines as defined in the below figure.

The combination of classical engineering disciplines and systemic levels of effort provides you with the necessary academic skills for an environmental engineer with a profile in Eco-efficient Engineering. You can see some of these skills in the below matrix.